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I don't know where the idea of nuclear being cheap comes from. Yes, the fuel is miniscule and relatively cheap, but all it does is get far hotter than any type

I don't know where the idea of nuclear being cheap comes from. Yes, the fuel is miniscule and relatively cheap, but all it does is get far hotter than any type of coal or gas boiler would. You still need a heat engine on the higher tech end of material science to turn that heat into usable energy. And that's not even taking into account the oversized cooling system to cover the difference between the dynamic grid load and a reactor who's throttle response time is measured in days. That doesn't mean nuclear is a bad thing, especially when you consider the externalities and production costs of other systems. It's just not a miracle electricity device. Personally I'm looking forward to the point people realize you don't totally need the whole "electric generator" aspect of nuclear and start direct connecting it to things that need heat, like desalination

panick21_ 4y ago
If you do a first principles analysis of the amount of material required and the complexity of the plant, nuclear looks really good. The turbine you use to turn heat into power can be the same as the one uses for commercial gas. Nuclear is not actually hotter. Current PWR are actually cooler then Gas/Coal plant (and that's part of why they are so expensive). Most high temperature nuclear reactors will run at comparable temperatures to gas plants, around 600C. I don't know much about gas plants so correct me if they run at lower temps. > higher tech end of material science High temperature doesn't necessary use high tech. Depending on the design, the main containment vessel can be pretty ordinary stainless steal. And the same can be said for airplanes, cars or rockets. They use high tech, but if you do it correctly and you build more then 1, it can still be cheap for the end user. > And that's not even taking into account the oversized cooling system High temperature reactors don't need huge cooling systems. The huge size of PWR is mostly related to its absurdly large steam cooling systems, but all of that wouldn't exist in a modern reactor. > reactor who's throttle response time is measured in days. Again, you are drawing conclusions from current reactor designs that were fundamentally designed in the 1960s to power submarines. Modern reactor designs can have very good load following capability. Specially if you make that a goal of the reactor design. A good reactor design is fundamentally load following, if you pull more energy it will produce more. > It's just not a miracle electricity device. I would sort-of disagree. I would suggest that most miracles (walking on water) are not as amazing as the discovery of a material that has many orders of magnitude higher energy density and the a device that has the ability to harness that. Of course its not a divine miracle but given a world that is powered by coal, finding uranium/thorium is basically a miracle. A nuclear reactor like we could build it if we do 5-10 more design iteration would be one of the closes things to a miracle device that we use. > Personally I'm looking forward to the point people realize you don't totally need the whole "electric generator" aspect of nuclear and start direct connecting it to things that need heat, like desalination Yes, very much so. If you look at the live of Alvin Weinberg one of pioneers of the nuclear age and the inventor of both the PWR and the Molten Salt reactor. His vision was far beyond just power generation. He had a whole vision of society driven by nuclear plants, nuclear desalination was on of them. I not sure if he talked about synthetic fuel or not. You could even imagine having a nuclear reactor per city super-block and then using solar salt to circulate the heating rather then using electrical heaters. But to get to these applications we need to build on the currently existing market.

panick21_ 4y ago

If you do a first principles analysis of the amount of material required and the complexity of the plant, nuclear looks really good. The turbine you use to turn heat into power can be the same as the one uses for commercial gas. Nuclear is not actually hotter. Current PWR are actually cooler then Gas/Coal plant (and that's part of why they are so expensive). Most high temperature nuclear reactors will run at comparable temperatures to gas plants, around 600C. I don't know much about gas plants so correct me if they run at lower temps. > higher tech end of material science High temperature doesn't necessary use high tech. Depending on the design, the main containment vessel can be pretty ordinary stainless steal. And the same can be said for airplanes, cars or rockets. They use high tech, but if you do it correctly and you build more then 1, it can still be cheap for the end user. > And that's not even taking into account the oversized cooling system High temperature reactors don't need huge cooling systems. The huge size of PWR is mostly related to its absurdly large steam cooling systems, but all of that wouldn't exist in a modern reactor. > reactor who's throttle response time is measured in days. Again, you are drawing conclusions from current reactor designs that were fundamentally designed in the 1960s to power submarines. Modern reactor designs can have very good load following capability. Specially if you make that a goal of the reactor design. A good reactor design is fundamentally load following, if you pull more energy it will produce more. > It's just not a miracle electricity device. I would sort-of disagree. I would suggest that most miracles (walking on water) are not as amazing as the discovery of a material that has many orders of magnitude higher energy density and the a device that has the ability to harness that. Of course its not a divine miracle but given a world that is powered by coal, finding uranium/thorium is basically a miracle. A nuclear reactor like we could build it if we do 5-10 more design iteration would be one of the closes things to a miracle device that we use. > Personally I'm looking forward to the point people realize you don't totally need the whole "electric generator" aspect of nuclear and start direct connecting it to things that need heat, like desalination Yes, very much so. If you look at the live of Alvin Weinberg one of pioneers of the nuclear age and the inventor of both the PWR and the Molten Salt reactor. His vision was far beyond just power generation. He had a whole vision of society driven by nuclear plants, nuclear desalination was on of them. I not sure if he talked about synthetic fuel or not. You could even imagine having a nuclear reactor per city super-block and then using solar salt to circulate the heating rather then using electrical heaters. But to get to these applications we need to build on the currently existing market.